


Totally Married Her

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Spoilers for Episode: 2013 Xmas The Time of the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 05:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They did say, "Until next time..."</p><p>I choose to believe that the Doctor sees River again, more than once, in a town called Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Totally Married Her

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [happiness is an allegory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585466) by [areyoumarriedriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyoumarriedriver/pseuds/areyoumarriedriver). 



It wasn’t that he was surprised to see Amy.

It was that he was surprised _not_ to see River.

River Song, Melody Pond, the woman who married him.

And who had spent quite a lot of the past centuries with him here in the town called Christmas, on the planet called Trenzalore.

Where he fell, and she fell with him this time, together at last, for weeks at a time.

No matter that no-one else could see her; now she was here with him, he didn’t care.

But if anyone deserved a happy ending, it was River Song, and if she felt that her happy ending was with _him_ , then he was honoured.

He remembered...

/ 

“Hello, sweetie.”

The Doctor stared. _But_... his mind said. _But, but, but_...

“I was mentally linked with Clara,” she had said.   
“If she’s really dead, then how can I still be here?”

And he had thought _If **you’re** really dead,  
then how can you still be here?_

And she had said, “Spoilers. Goodbye, sweetie.” 

Had she deliberately implied that she was, in fact, still alive (or at least, could still be solid in some timey wimey, spacey wacey way he didn’t quite understand)? He hadn’t had time, not then, to chase down the stray thought. And afterward, to his shame, he had forgotten in his rush to save Clara and the dread he’d felt at seeing the War Doctor.

Poor War Doctor. Thank all the gods that he remembered now, that they had saved... that... wait, no, _focus_!

All this crossed the Doctor’s mind in less than point two three six five nanoseconds, and then he found himself holding out one hand. “You could come with me,” he said, “You haven’t a promise to live up to any longer. Have you?”

River shook her head and took his hand. “I haven’t,” she said quietly, and the Doctor decided not to mention the catch he heard in her voice. She never did like showing weakness, vulnerability.

And she would see it as damage. So he didn’t mention it.

Instead, he used the hand he held to pull her to him; wrapping long arms around her, he buried his nose in the wild curls, and just stood, holding her to him and drawing strength. He could do this now, he could stay here at Christmas, at Trenzalore, even though the TARDIS had taken Clara to safety.

Because he wasn’t alone, not while River Song was here.

Presently he realised she was kissing his neck, tracing the junction of throat and jaw with her lips and tongue and teeth, and he groaned.

 _So long_ , he thought, _it’s been so long._

Since Darillium, when they made love and he'd cried as the Towers sang.

“River...” The Doctor’s hands moved of their own volition, spanning River’s narrow waist and splaying over the bare skin of her back. He pulled her closer, noting that they were matched for height, which meant she was wearing the _shoes_. Gods above, he loved those shoes, nearly as much as he loved her hair; the shoes made her just tall enough to meet him hips to hips and hearts to hearts and lips to lips.

“Stay with me.” He couldn’t say _travel with me_ , he hadn’t anywhere to go or any way to get there. But River would understand.

“But not all the time.” She murmured it against his ear and he shivered.

“All right,” he said, and kissed her.

_Oh, gods, so sweet._

River sighed breathily into his mouth and he found that he was completely undone by the sound, the scent, the _taste_ of her. “River...”

And so he loved her, then and whenever she came to him, for centuries.

/

“They engineered a psychopath to kill you,” Tasha Lem said.

“Totally married her. I’d never have made it here alive without River Song.”

 _I wouldn’t have_ , he thought later. _I wouldn’t have made it here alive without any of them, my brothers and sisters and lovers and friends. But I wouldn’t have made it here sane – as sane as I ever am – without River Song._

My River Song.

Melody Pond.

The woman who married me.

“Raggedy Man. Good night,” River’s mother said.

_The first face this face saw._

“No, no! Please don’t change.”

_Oh, my Impossible Clara. I must._

_It’s as I told River, ‘there is a time to live and a time to die.’_

_No, that’s Ecclesiastes. ‘A time to sleep,’ yes_

_But it **is** time. Time for me to change_

_I am an echo. I should have faded by now._

/

“Stay calm,” said the Doctor. “Just one question. D’you happen to know how to fly this thing?”

**Author's Note:**

> Because please forgive me, Charina my dear, but I need the endings to be at least a little happy


End file.
